1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to bowling alleys and in particular to bowling alleys which may be used by developmentally disabled persons to enhance their sense of achievement. In particular, this invention relates to bowling alleys having means removably disposed in the alley gutters to provide deflection surfaces against which misdirected balls will bounce and remain on the lane to ultimately knock down pins.
Most often, developmentally and physically disabled persons, the "handicapped", are confronted with failure. In various forms of educational methodologies and treatments they are confronted with challenges over which they succeed slowly, if at all. What may seem to the able bodied person to be the most routine of tasks can prove to be a source of great frustration for the handicapped.
The continual failure which disabled persons often experience can be demoralizing. This feeling can lead to the handicapped person giving up his attempts at old tasks as well as new ones. This failure leads to low self-esteen and self-worth which consequently can cause the handicapped person, at any age, to diminish whatever self-help skills and feelings of independence he or she has. The result is an increasing demand on dependence on those around them: the family and the community.
The importance of providing enjoyable, enriching successful activities to increase effective skills should not be underplayed. In the light of Public Law 94-142, The Education of All Handicapped Children's Act, it was mandated that appropriate educational plans must be written by the school and approved of by the parent or guardian for each handicapped individual ages three through 21. (Different states have different ranges.) The implications of this law are extensive. Implementation of specific goals for each impaired person reach into the psychomotor, cognitive and affective domains. The present invention increases the handicapped person's chances of attaining particular goals through a simple modification of an existing bowling alley. The product could also be purchased, in portable kit form, by a school or institution thereby costing the bowling establishment nothing at all. Furthermore, the deflection device's easy usage encourages the handicapped, as well as the aged, to move into the community mainstream by providing them with a leisure time activity already available to persons without handicap.
Specifically, the present invention is directed to the game of bowling. Bowling is an especially desirable activity which provides excitement as well as motoric growth and socialization that can be engaged in during inclement weather. However, bowling, even for those without handicaps, is not a very easy task. For the handicapped, what usually happens is that they are unable to direct the bowling ball in a straight enough path to actually knock down any pins. It is not uncommon for a handicapped person attempting to bowl to totally fail, i.e., to roll 20 "gutter balls" in one game. Such an experience is frustrating. When constant failure is repeated game after game, week after week, it weakens the already frail self-esteem. To avoid this discouraging and sometimes depressing result, the present invention is directed to means which, when combined with a standard bowling alley, converts the bowling alley into a carom bowling alley wherein the ball, if misdirected towards a gutter, bounces off the means and remains on the alley until it finally hits pins. The knocking down of the pins is tantamount to success. It is a more exciting and elating experience than usual for the handicapped person playing the game. There can be a sense of joy and an understanding of a cause and effect relationship. The handicapped person can achieve a positive result, he can be successful.
2. Description of the Prior Art
U.S. Pat. No. 3,401,933 discloses a convertible bowling lane suitable for ordinary bowling and carom bowling. The lane includes movable means which when retracted define the bottoms of the lane gutters along both sides of each lane and when extended provide upstanding ball deflection device. The movable means is operated through a complex drive by a reversible motor energized by a control system. The disclosed system calls for considerable additional expense in new bowling alleys to be so built, as well as for extensive remodelling at great expense for alleys already in existence. This has served as a deterrant to its use. Thus, U.S. Pat. No. 3,401,833 has had little significant effect on the opportunity for the handicapped to carom bowl.
Obvious disadvantages of the prior system, i.e., a high purchase price to be borne by the owner of the bowling alley, and a potentially high susceptibility of failures due to the complexity of the system are overcome by employing the removable deflection means of the present invention. The present invention's removable, as opposed to the merely movable, deflection means of the prior art means that inserts can be removably placed into the gutters of any conventional bowling alley for use by handicapped bowlers and then actually removed therefrom for storage elsewhere so that the lane may be played in the conventional manner.